Tuesday 1 March 2011

Events Site. I’m guessing much of this material will come from my book chapter, so be interesting to see the angle. I’ve just been given a comp ticket, so I’ll come along and try to remember what I wrote!!

A key work for this project which fully considers the administrative history of the Ministry of Information, the lead government department for propaganda. He argues that for two years, the measures taken by government propagandists were:

• Unnecessary and inept
• Based on misunderstanding and distrust of the British public
• Products of the class and background of the propagandists themselves.
• He feels that after two years:
• The Germans were still characterised as irretrievably wicked.
• Efforts were made to separate Communism from the ‘Russian’ (not Soviet) war effort.
• Propaganda was intermittently prompted by doubts about people’s martial stamina and devotion to Parliamentary democracy.

McLaine felt that the achievements of the Ministry of Information were that:

• The MOI realised importance of full and honest news as a factor
• They recognised that in the fight against totalitarianism, it was important not to disregard one of its main weapons, although within a democratic context.
• With benefit of Home Intelligence, the MOI came to regard the British people as sensible and tough, and so entitled to be taken into the government’s confidence

See if you can get hold of a copy on Amazon.}

Edinburgh University Press Review. Further Details

The book looks at the organisation behind the broadcasts to the United Kingdom during the Second World War: the RMVP (German Propaganda Ministry). It considers the subjects used in broadcasts during the `Phoney war`, including the type of social problems in Britain upon which the Nazis focused. It also discusses the subject matter used during a time of seemingly `unstoppable victories` for the Nazis, and also reflects upon how they dealt with the issue of defeat. The book also considers how the British, including the state, the media, and the people, reacted to the broadcasts.

People often felt that they were not being given enough facts by their own government, so turned to `Lord Haw-Haw` for information. Along with other recent books by James Chapman ‘The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda’ (1998) and Mariel Grant ‘Propaganda and the Role of State in Interwar Britain’ (1994) this book is a converted, well-researched, PhD thesis dealing with an otherwise under-researched area in the ever-widening field of British propaganda studies, with a particular focus upon the highly mythologized figure of `Lord Haw-Haw`

An interesting extra to the book is a CD which contains a selection of wartime broadcasts by `Lord Haw-Haw` and other broadcasters from Germany, spanning January 1940 to April 1945. It is interesting that new media has allowed a wider circulation of such topics, with a reasonable sound quality.

Buy from Amazon.

Clark argues against this negative and unbalanced view, examining the complex relationship between art and politics, demonstrating how works of art can have a political purpose, and considering how particular art styles become associated with political systems.

Clark considers not only the state propaganda produced by the dictatorship states, but also deals with the question of propaganda as produced by democratic states, from the late 19^th century to the 1990s

The image used on the front cover is one of the best remembered posters from the Second World War, and is contrasted in the book with a poster used in the First World War which highlights the differing roles of women during the world wars.

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He shows how film propaganda was more successful than alleged. He examines the roles of both commercial film industry and government film units; through an analysis of government and trade sources he explores the relationship between the Ministry of Information & sectors of the film industry. He discusses the role of the cinema as a vehicle for propaganda – set within the context of a country at war. He identifies themes and images through the analysis of key films, whilst exploring their competing entertainment and propaganda values.

Chapman investigated a wide range of different sources including government records, the trade press, newspaper reviews, Mass-Observation surveys & some private letters, memoranda and committee minutes to produce a thorough, well-written, analytical work.

Buy from Amazon.

Visit the Centre, its associated resources, and check out the MA in War, Media and Modernity

Templeman Library at the University of Kent therefore has a great collection of material: there’s over 500 entries for the keyword ‘propaganda’.

“This site is inspired by the pioneering work of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). In 1937, the IPA was created to educate the American public about the widespread nature of political propaganda. Composed of social scientists and journalists, the IPA published a series of books, including:

• The Fine Art of Propaganda
• Propaganda Analysis
• Group Leader’s Guide to Propaganda Analysis
• Propaganda: How To Recognize and Deal With It

The IPA is best-known for identifying the seven basic propaganda devices: Name-Calling, Glittering Generality, Transfer, Testimonial, Plain Folks, Card Stacking, and Band Wagon. According to the authors of a recent book on propaganda, “these seven devices have been repeated so frequently in lectures, articles, and textbooks ever since that they have become virtually synonymous with the practice and analysis of propaganda in all of its aspects.” (Combs and Nimmo, 1993)”

Euphemism

“When propagandists use glittering generalities and name-calling symbols, they are attempting to arouse their audience with vivid, emotionally suggestive words. In certain situations, however, the propagandist attempts to pacify the audience in order to make an unpleasant reality more palatable. This is accomplished by using words that are bland and euphemistic.

Since war is particularly unpleasant, military discourse is full of euphemisms. In the 1940′s, America changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense. Under the Reagan Administration, the MX-Missile was renamed “The Peacekeeper.” During war-time, civilian casualties are referred to as “collateral damage,” and the word “liquidation” is used as a synonym for “murder.”

The comedian George Carlin notes that, in the wake of the first world war, traumatized veterans were said to be suffering from “shell shock.” The short, vivid phrase conveys the horrors of battle — one can practically hear the shells exploding overhead. After the second world war, people began to use the term “combat fatigue” to characterize the same condition. The phrase is a bit more pleasant, but it still acknowledges combat as the source of discomfort. In the wake of the Vietnam War, people referred to “post-traumatic stress disorder”: a phrase that is completely disconnected from the reality of war altogether.”

Origins of Propaganda

The term propaganda originated from the ‘Congragatio de propaganda fide’ (congregation for propagating the faith), a Roman Catholic organisation founded in 1622 for the purposes of missionary work. By the end of the First World War, it had become an unsavoury term: the Americans believed that they had been ‘lured’ into the war through the use of British propaganda. The Nazis appeared to believe the same, as Goebbels had a great admiration for British propaganda, and modelled the German Propaganda Ministry upon it. Note that the British had a ‘Ministry of Information’, not a ‘Ministry of Propaganda’ – and a great deal of thought was put into naming the Ministry, with Persuasion not thought to be strong enough, and Propaganda thought to be too strong!

Defining Propaganda

The word ‘propaganda’ is defined as “The systematic propagation of nformation or ideas by an intrested party,  esp. in a tendentious way to encourage or instil a particular  attitude or response. Also, the ideas, doctrines, etc., disseminated thus; the vehicle of such propagation.” (OED Online, Accessed 11^th April 2000)

Encarta defines propaganda as the “dissemination of ideas and information for the purpose of inducing or intensifying specific attitudes and actions. Because propaganda is frequently accompanied by distortions of fact and by appeals to passion and prejudice, it is often thought to be invariably false or misleading. This view is relative, however. Although some propagandists may intentionally distort fact, others may present it as faithfully as objective observers. A lawyer’s brief is as much propaganda as a billboard advertisement. Education, whatever its objective, is a form of propaganda. The essential distinction lies in the intentions of the propagandist to persuade an audience to adopt the attitude or action he or she espouses.” [Encarta]

And of course, these days, no “description” would be complete without Wikipedia and Dictionary.com!

Subverted images are always fascinating, and tell us a lot about connections with the time that the original poster was produced, and the time that the subverted image appears - in this example at a time of attempted re-election for George Bush.

“View a collection of anti-war cartoons, remixed propaganda posters, and other parody art expressing political dissent” on anti-war cartoons and propaganda parodies.

Alternate Translation: Big Red Dude Bombs the Hell Out of Hitler With a Magic Anvil.

See the original post, where the author is looking for contributions to his blog, essentially anything showing “Hitler getting punched!”